Red Sand
by PWTMC
Summary: In the midst of fighting a losing war, Konoha is struck by a devastating plague. Established KakaSaku.


OOO

Kakashi moved effortlessly, cutting his way through opponent after opponent, his small team following closely behind him. They forced their way through the front lines, marveling at Suna's lack of suitable opposition and ecstatic at the fact that they might win this battle.

Blood covering the fabric of his mask from chidori after chidori, Kakashi smiled. This was what Konoha desperately needed – a win after so many losses.

All around Konoha shinobi, the desert floor began to fill with red sand and dead bodies as their combatants numbers filed down and they fell. They had a sure thing here.

"Kakashi! Look out!"

Sakura's scream loud in his ears, he dodged the thrown kunai just in time. Stuck in the fact that there was nothing they could do to lose this battle, after so much time, he was getting sloppy.

Near breathless, he turned to her, "Oops."

She punched him hard, "Don't just brush it off. Be careful, Kakashi."

"Right."

That was one of the harder parts of being thrust in a war like this, working side by side with the love of your life. Neither Sakura or Kakashi could pay as much attention to themselves or to what they were doing as they could to each other.

But this way at least there was always someone to count on. Kakashi took it as a blessing.

Even though the last war he fought was an overwhelming victory for Konoha and this one was traveling the slippery slope of lost battle after lost battle, he liked fighting this one more, if you could even have a preference in war.

OOO

"Feels good, doesn't it?" Kakashi asked, running a hand through his messy gray hair. The stress had taken a physical toll on him, manifested in eyes that weren't as vibrant as they normally were and hands that weren't as stable. These were things that only someone like Sakura would notice and only because she was so close to him.

Although he was smiling for the first time in a long time. Probably because this was the first battle Konoha had come from victorious in a long time. Kakashi knew that this solitary battle wouldn't win the war, though. Morale was great right now. The soldiers were happy, everybody felt great, but Kakashi knew that there would be another bloody battle tomorrow and the Hokage would be relying on him and men like him to lead it.

"It's kind of bittersweet, actually." Sakura commented, the drink she was nursing between her hands shifting in her glass. She found that if she didn't drink continuously quite an annoying build-up of condensation forms on the sides of all her glasses, making her hands all cold and wet.

Kakashi shrugged in reply, "Right now, this is good enough for me. It's twenty-four hours where I don't necessarily have to think about what happens twenty-four hours from now."

"You probably should."

Kakashi sighed, running the hand that was just in his hair over his face, as if he could just wipe away the months of warfare and the various hells he'd been forced into.

"We're not going to win this war, Sakura." Kakashi told her, eyes meeting her own, "Sometimes I don't even know why we're here. I lived through two other wars and was prepared to sacrifice myself the whole time I was fighting, but... If I die here, fighting this ridiculous excuse of a war, I don't think I'd be too happy with that."

"If we didn't step in now, it would have been worse later. Suna doesn't know when to stop."

Kakashi shrugged once more. His attention returned to the bottle of alcohol in front of him and he poured himself another shot and drank it. Sakura's let her mind wander, to the sound of their background. Behind her and Kakashi and their ugly conversation, other ninja were laughing and screaming and carrying on, having a genuinely good time.

Kakashi couldn't because unlike them, he'd done this before. He knew what came next. This was simply the calm before the storm. Suna wouldn't be happy and tomorrow a lot of these fresh, young faces would be dead and buried.

It was sad to think about.

Sakura leaned over, resting her head on one of Kakashi's broad shoulders. She was just thankful that she could be here with him. If he got hurt, he wouldn't have to come home to her in a coffin, she could patch him up and have him in condition to fight the next day. She didn't have to worry like so many other women waiting for their men back in Konoha.

Sakura was lucky she got to fight this war, too.

Kakashi's free hand settled on her leg and he turned his head to press a kiss into her mess of pink hair, in desperate need of a nice wash and brush. He never minded, though. After being out in the sand and heat for so long, you get used to those kinds of things.

"When we get home, we should lay on the couch and eat ice cream all day, every day, for weeks and weeks and weeks. And maybe watch bad war movies. Compare and contrast. That whole deal." Sakura commented, her voice drowned out to everybody but Kakashi in the loud bar.

In a way, she liked that the two of them could have a completely private conversation in such a public place.

"Or maybe we could just try to lapse into comas and sleep. That would be fabulous." She continued, turning her head to look up at him. Unwilling to life her head from his shoulder, all she really got was the one side of his face, but she was fine with that. He had that stupid mask on, anyway. And he refused to take it off. He always did.

"I was thinking something more along the lines of maybe getting married when we got back home."

At that, Sakura's head lifted. She wanted to get a good look at him, make sure what just came out of his mouth really came out of his mouth.

"What?" She asked. Something about it just didn't register. Maybe it was that she never imagined one of the moments in her life that was supposed to be so beautiful happening in a crappy rundown Sunagakure run bar during the middle of a war with her over-tired and over-worked boyfriend all but crying into his alcohol.

"Maybe we should just get married?" Kakashi tried again, hesitantly asking, "You know, settle down? I've been thinking about it for a while. Maybe it's just time. This is my third war and I'm thinking that when it's done, so am I."

The little daydreams and fantasies she had felt like a palpable reality in the blink of an eye as Kakashi painted a vivid picture in her mind with nothing but those blunt words and suddenly it didn't matter if Kakashi decided to do this right here, right now – that wasn't what was important. She wanted to agree, wholeheartedly. And she wanted someone to magically end the war so Kakashi could sweep her off her feet and carry her home, away from the battles and into the pretty 'settled down' world he spoke of.

"Are you proposing to me?" She asked, smile spreading over her face.

She could see Kakashi's smile starting to form under his mask as well. "Well, I didn't exactly plan for it to be like this. I was going to do the whole begging on one knee thing, but..."

Sakura brushed it off with a wave of her hand, "Doesn't matter."

Her approach could have been easily felt, but Kakashi didn't stop her from tugging his mask down and pressing her lips to his.

"I'll take that as a yes, then?" Kakashi asked, cocky as ever.

Sakura nodded back, "An emphatic yes. With babies and a dog and a white picket fence included."

He laughed.

She laughed.

"Is it just me or did this party just get a whole lot more festive?" The medic asked, leaning back in for another kiss. When she got home, she was going to let Kakashi put a ring on it – and it better be a nice one, too. The thought made her warm all over and super awake, excited, like she wanted to do everything, tell everyone.

This was definitely not the way she pictured today going at all, but it was the first good thing to happen to her in a while.

"It's not just you." Kakashi said back.

The second their lips touched they were being pulled apart.

"Gross. That's gross. I didn't come here to see that."

Naruto stood with one hand on Kakashi's shoulder and Sasuke stood with Sakura. Their moment had officially been ruined.

The blonde spun Sakura around on her bar stool, both of his large, tan hands gripping her shoulders, "Come dance with me! Sasuke won't. He's no fun."

Sasuke looked unapologetic. Everyone already knew he was no fun. It didn't matter how much he had to drink, his answer to dancing would still be a definite no.

Sakura turned back to face Kakashi. He pretty much just proposed to her (at least, she was ninety-nine percent sure that was what it was, and that other one percent might have just been shock) and he was all she really cared for at the moment. Their conversation wasn't over. And the urge to fall into his lap and wrap her arms around him and never let go wasn't dissipating any.

Naruto lifted a hand to her face, "Hey! Don't ignore me! You can't spend all night with Kakashi-sensei, that's not fair to the rest of us."

"But - "

From behind her, Kakashi cleared his throat, "Actually, I'm already feeling kind of tired. I think I'll just go back to base and get some sleep."

Sakura tugged herself out of Naruto's grasp. She couldn't believe Kakashi wasn't protesting this. "I'll go with you, then." She offered.

Kakashi's "You should stay and have fun" was drowned out by Naruto's almost appalled, "Dude, gross! No!"

Because as much as Naruto accepted and supported Sakura's choice in Kakashi, he wasn't willing to think about her accompanying him back to his room on base.

"But I - "

Kakashi batted Naruto away to get his own hands on his woman for a second. She was tugged in another direction once again, back toward her future husband – a very exciting thought – and his notorious shut-eyed smile. "I'll see you in the morning."

"We were kind of in the middle of something, Kakashi."

He shrugged, "You weren't going to say no to me, were you?"

"Of course I wasn't."

"Then we can talk in the morning."

Sakura frowned at him. No way in hell was she waiting until the morning. She had her own say in this matter and if Kakashi was seriously going to ask her to stay back with Naruto and Sasuke while he went to sleep off his semi-drunkenness, she would be waking him up when she got to their room later tonight.

"Don't pout." Kakashi said. Sakura could tell he was tired. It was clear in his voice. That wasn't the alcohol. "It's unbecoming."

"Whatever."

Then Kakashi leaned in for one more kiss, earning him another pair of groans from his less fortunate boys.

"We can talk in the morning."

Kakashi stood and walked away. While he had all the self-control and patience in the world, Sakura found it unfair that she had to divvy time up between teammates that maybe she just wanted for herself. To be with Kakashi.

He was everything to her these days. It wasn't that she didn't love all her boys, it was simply that she fought beside Kakashi day in and day out. They'd been sharing a bed since she was twenty, too. It was definitely a different kind of love.

She watched his retreating back, plotting her brutal revenge step by step until Naruto roughly jabbed her in the side.

"Come on! We have to catch up, it's been ages!"

OOO


End file.
